Postcard Prerogative.

The postcard assignment was an essential exercise because it allowed us to merge together the three programs we have been working in through creative suites. This exercise allowed us to showcase the skills we have acquired through practice with Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator and turn it into one cohesive piece. This assignment in which we had to display the element of design communication was important because moving forward with future assignments, because I must know how to merge all of the applications together to create more advanced graphics and show that I am learning and developing a grasp on the programs. If executed well, this exercise shows that I grasp the key elements to design and how to draw in the eye, as well as grasping techniques such as transferring images and text between multiple programs and how to create graphics or silhouette images without issues. Also, this exercise helps to develop an eye for what is appealing to a viewer and how to place certain images, text, and colors where in order to direct the eye to a certain space.

In my postcard I used bright colors that complimented each other. I used the color teal because not only is it my favorite color, but the contrast with the white and magenta bring a happy and bubbly feel to the overall aura of the postcard. The gradient also acts as a guide for the eye, it points the viewer to scan the whole page and view every graphic and piece of text I included. The use of bright teal and a pretty magenta were so I could express to the viewer I have a bright and bubbly personality, as well as being very classy and not too flashy or over the top.

I wanted to keep the fonts simple because I wanted the graphics from my postcard to shine through the most. Also, the use of two simple fonts reiterates the fact that I am very simple and not over the top or have an in your face personality.

The graphics were the focal point of this postcard because I wanted to make it look as if it this was a page ripped out of a magazine with the pretty graphics and bright colors. The hearts were made using a pen tool in Illustrator, I placed them on the side with the white gradient because I feel the colors contrast and the white makes the graphic pop. Also, the white stars at the bottom of my postcard were created in Illustrator. They were placed at the left hand, bottom corner because I wanted the eye to follow the strand to the very end where they would be directed to look at the silhouetted image of myself and the text surrounding me. If the stars didn’t do the text justice, I added a dotted box outlining my short biography because I wanted to draw the eye and make the text look like it was on a marquee sign. The overall feel I wanted my postcard to have was one of glamor, sophistication, and brightness.

When designing the postcard I kept it in mind how this design would look to someone seeing it for the first time, and used elements of staggering text, juxtaposing graphics and centering the largest and most attention grabbing image to make a bold statement. I feel with how I arranged my images, graphics, and text, I succeeded in making my postcard look as if it came out of the pages of a magazine, like a sort of mini article.

I feel the only challenge I faced during this project was how to get rid of the background of my silhouetted image so there was no large white space once I placed it on my InDesign document from Photoshop. I was successful in silhouetting my image from the background but once I placed it in InDesign I struggled with getting rid of the background space. I then learned to use the pen tool in InDesign to make an outline around the silhouette of myself which would then get rid of the background space and allow my text to wrap effectively around the outline of myself.

Overall, this assignment was a great learning experience to help me understand which applications I need to focus more of my time on. Also, it allowed me to showcase all I have learned in the class since the first week of school and developing it into one cohesive design. I feel I accomplished executing well thought out design hierarchy and proved I have come far from the first day of learning InDesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator.